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Side Dishes

If you haven’t tried grilled Mexican street corn or Mexican street corn for that matter, you are missing out. But don’t worry, I missed out for years, too! I actually used to avoid even trying Mexican street corn because I assumed I wouldn’t like the flavor. I’m not a huge fan of creamed corn, so my fear was Mexican street corn would taste similar to that. It wasn’t until a friend of mine ordered Mexican street corn at a local taco joint that I finally gave it a shot and LOVED it!

There are several different variations of Mexican street corn, but for me, the cotija cheese was the winning ingredient. Have you tried cotija cheese?!? Oh man, it’s what cheese dreams are made of. The cream sauce, the lime juice, the chili powder, the cotija, I mean what a flavor combination, right?? Grilling corn on the cob is super easy, too, which makes this recipe quick and easy. And as a bonus, you can just cut off any leftovers, add additional cream sauce and have a Mexican street corn salad for leftovers.

Ingredients

Cream Sauce

Instructions

In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, sour cream, salt, cumin and lime juice. Mix well.

Remove husks and silk from each ear of corn, add to the grill on medium heat. Cook about 2 minutes on each side, continually rotating until the corn has a uniformed color (about 6-8 min. total).

Remove corn from grill. Using a brush, spread the cream sauce over each ear of corn heavily. Once covered, squeeze the lime half over the corn. Sprinkle the chili powder over each ear and then sprinkle the crumbled cotija cheese on top as well.

Brussel sprouts, I think you either love them or hate them. I used to hate them, but now I…like them. We haven’t reached the LOVE stage yet. When I do cook brussel sprouts I like to make them caramelized with a sweet and tangy sauce, like with these honey caramelized brussel sprouts. I also like to leave the loose leafs on the pan when I roast them, that way I get the dark, crispy pieces to enjoy along with the full brussel sprout heads.

These honey caramelized brussel sprouts are another super easy side dish to include with Christmas dinner. Like I mentioned before, I’m treating you to an easy Christmas dinner that is full on flavor but short on time. Count that as my Christmas gift to all of you! The whole grain mustard and balsamic vinaigrette balances out the sweetness of the honey and makes the perfect caramelized glaze for these brussel sprouts.

Hasselback potatoes might be my new favorite way to roast potatoes, like with these lemon garlic hasselback potatoes. If you’re looking for an easy side dish for Christmas dinner, or any dinner, look no further. These hasselback potatoes are roasted in lemon butter with a hint of garlic, allowing them to soak up the savory lemon butter as they roast.

This week I’m sharing with you simple, easy recipes you could incorporate into your Christmas dinner. For me, after the craze of a large Thanksgiving dinner I want to just keep Christmas dinner simple and these lemon garlic hasselback potatoes were just what I needed. Sprinkle on some salt, pepper and a little lemon zest and you’ll want to devour the entire dish!

These cinnamon honey sweet potatoes are another good side dish you could serve up this Thanksgiving if you wanted a quick and easy, yet delicious, sweet potato side dish! The cinnamon and honey caramelize around the sweet potatoes and it’s like eating a gooey cinnamon roll, so good. These are also super quick and easy to make, simply toss the diced potatoes in the cinnamon, honey, and ghee mixture and roast in the oven, that’s it.

The sweetness from the raw honey is also a good replacement for traditional brown sugar. You’ll get that sweet fix without any refined sugars. The cinnamon simply adds another layer of flavor. Sprinkle with some Himalayan salt and you’ll have a good sweet + salty mixture!

Hello Wanderlust and Wellness Tribe!! Over the past 11 days we have shared with you a FULL Thanksgiving menu that incorporates Paleo, Primal, Gluten-free, and overall healthier options for your Thanksgiving dinner. Remember, you don’t have to sacrifice flavor when choosing healthier options and that’s exactly what we’ve provided you with here, a menu FULL of deliciously healthy Thanksgiving recipes. Below, you’ll find an overall summary and link to each of the 13 recipes included in the full meal plan. Beyond that, you’ll find a suggested serving guide that will help you determine how many batches of each recipe to fix based upon the number of guests you’ll be serving. You’ll also find a link to a printable grocery shopping guide (based upon 1 full recipe serving size). Pick and choose or fix the whole meal plan, it’s up to you!!

Full Meal Plan Outline:

Apple Cranberry Spinach Salad

Maple Mustard Roasted Carrots

Parmesan Mashed Potatoes

Orange Cranberry Sauce

Thanksgiving Meat and Cheese Platter

Gluten-free Dinner Rolls

Mini-Pumpkin Pies with Maple Cinnamon Coconut Cream

Butternut Sausage Stuffing

Sautéed Mushrooms and Green Beans

Smashed Sweet Potatoes with Maple Aioli

Bone Broth Gravy

Apple Galette

Maple Herb Turkey

Suggest Serving Guide:

Grocery Shopping List:

Click the image above to download your grocery shopping list

We hope you enjoy this Thanksgiving meal plan as much as we have making it for you! Let’s make this fun! As a BONUS, snap a pic of any or all of the dishes you make for your own dinner and share on social media with the hashtag #wanderlustandwellnessthanksgiving (and tag Wanderlust and Wellness, too, if you can). We would LOVE to see what you fixed (and there might be a special giveaway for those that participate)!

What’s Thanksgiving dinner without mashed potatoes and a savory bone broth gravy? I used to be deathly afraid of making gravy. My previous experiences ended up in tasteless disasters. Then I faced my fears and tried again and ended up with this savory bone broth gravy. There’s actually two ways you can make this recipe, one using straight bottled bone broth or using the drippings and juices from the turkey. I’ve tried both ways and either way you’ll end up with a nice savory (and stress free) gravy! By using the turkey drippings you’ll also gain the flavors of your turkey spice rub. But, if you’re just cooking something like a turkey breast, using bottled bone broth will give you the collagen benefits of bone broth gravy.

Have you ever noticed that the drippings from your cooked turkey can turn somewhat gelatinous after sitting? This is actually the collagen from the bones and is SUPER good for you! Ever heard of collagen injections for your skin? Well, by consuming bone broth you’re consuming natural collagen which not only helps your skin but also your joints, ligaments, gut, and immune system. Bone broth has been called ‘nature’s multivitamin’ due to its immense health benefits. Here’s an article that covers the health benefits of bone broth for your reading pleasure. So, not only does this gravy taste divine, it’s also good for your body!

Don’t forget, here’s the FULL Wanderlust and Wellness Thanksgiving Meal Plan:(I’ve made a few adjustments along the way)

Smashed sweet potatoes with a sweet and creamy maple aioli is what I call a blue ribbon winner! Seriously, these were my favorite part of the meal! I pretty much love sweet potatoes these days. Sweet potato fries, shoestring sweet potatoes, sweet potato hash browns, and these smashed sweet potatoes. My goal with every meal, especially this Thanksgiving meal, is to replace traditional recipes that ae not so healthy with a healthier alternative. With this recipe, I’ve replaced the traditional fried candied yams covered in brown sugar and marshmallows (seriously, who comes up with this stuff) with these roasted smashed sweet potatoes drizzled with a creamy maple aioli sauce. You’ll still get your sweetened sweet potato dish but in a much healthier version.

Sweet potatoes are also an excellent source of Vitamin A, providing over 400% of your daily Vitamin A needs. They are full of fiber and potassium. Sweet potatoes are also a complex carb, which basically means they are made up of fiber and nutrients, they take longer for your body to digest (compared to simple carbs) and the best part….they do not raise your blood sugar like a simple carb would. So there’s no sugar crash when it comes to these carbs. And remember, carbs are NOT the devil, it’s the quality of the carbs and quality of the foods that matter. Complex carbs also provide fuel to your body to be used with energy production. Now, on to the recipe!

Don’t forget, here’s the FULL Wanderlust and Wellness Thanksgiving Meal Plan:(I’ve made a few adjustments along the way)

Sautéed green beans and mushrooms in ghee make the perfect vegetable side dish for your Thanksgiving dinner. I love an excuse to sauté anything in ghee so when I planned the recipes for this Thanksgiving meal plan I just had to incorporate ghee somewhere! I used to avoid eating fresh green beans because of the texture, and because my only experience with them were poorly undercooked versions at restaurants. Seriously, they need to get it together because when you cook these lovelies correctly they are so good. They’re SO much better than their canned counterpart.

My husband loves mushrooms, he could eat just a plate full of sautéed mushrooms so I wanted to incorporate baby Portobello mushrooms into this recipe. Add in some salt, pepper, and a little bit of ginger and you’ll never turn back to canned green beans again. Originally I wanted to roast these but, as I previously mentioned, any excuse to sauté veggies in ghee is a good excuse in my book. Paired with the maple mustard roasted carrots I previously posted, you have a win win with veggies this Thanksgiving!

Don’t forget, here’s the FULL Wanderlust and Wellness Thanksgiving Meal Plan:(I’ve made a few adjustments along the way)

Stuffing, oh, stuffing, another one of my favorite Thanksgiving side dishes! This butternut sausage stuffing is gluten-free, savory, and full of flavor. You can use any of your favorite gluten-free breads with this recipe. The sweet Italian chicken sausage brings out additional flavor, along with the chicken broth, butternut squash, celery, onions, and seasonings. I promise you that removing gluten products from your diet does not mean you have to compromise on flavor.

You can also make the majority of this stuffing ahead of time, like the night before, to cut back on preparation time come Thanksgiving day. As I mentioned before, I’m going to include a preparation and cooking timeline with the meal plan to help you plan our your cooking schedule. I never knew cooking a large meal like this was such a jigsaw puzzle. Having to get everything cooked, but not at the same time, but keep it all warm, it’s definitely a challenge! But YOU can do it!

Don’t forget, here’s the FULL Wanderlust and Wellness Thanksgiving Meal Plan:(I’ve made a few adjustments along the way)

What’s a Thanksgiving dinner without rolls?? I wanted to share a gluten-free dinner roll recipe for my fellow gluten-free people. When I first transitioned to gluten-free I was afraid I would miss all of my favorite breads. That’s why I’ve made it my mission to find gluten-free alternatives to some of my favorite foods. I have always loved dinner rolls, in fact they might be my favorite part of a holiday meal. Okay, maybe not, or maybe so, that’s how much I LOVE my carbs! These gluten-free dinner rolls are sweet, just like you’re favorite sweet roll and they’re also dense, almost like a biscuit. I started to call these gluten-free dinner biscuits but then that really wouldn’t make sense. Just know that these have a more dense texture than traditional dinner rolls. One thing I’ve learned since going gluten-free is that things aren’t always going to match up exactly to their gluten-filled predecessor, and that’s okay.

This was also my first time making homemade rolls from scratch. Whew, that was a little stressful. But I was bound and determined to make these work. Slap some warm butter on these, maybe even some apple or pumpkin butter and mhmm, so good. You will need to allow time for the dough to first refrigerate, then rise. Out of all of my Thanksgiving recipes I’ll be sharing in the meal plan these might be one of the more complicated. Just being honest so you can fully prepare. As part of the meal plan and shopping list I’m going to provide a brief timeline for when to cook each item to help with a smooth transition. Hopefully you’ll find that helpful.

Don’t forget, here’s the FULL Wanderlust and Wellness Thanksgiving Meal Plan:(I’ve made a few adjustments along the way)

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Most days you can find me sipping my favorite bulletproof coffee blend, petting my cat, and creating good food recipes we can all enjoy. I’m a small-town Missouri food blogger, podcaster, and author with big aspirations. Let's chat more →